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The original chapters in this book connect the microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches to public debt. Through their thought-provoking views, leading scholars offer insights into the incentives that individuals and governments may have in resorting to public debt, thereby promoting a clearer understanding of its economic consequences. Learn More

This book offers a unique and insightful econometric evaluation of the policies used to fight transnational terrorism between 1990 and 2014 using a sample of 124 countries. It proves that foreign aid plays a crucial role by inducing recipient governments to protect the donors’ political and economic interests within their sphere of influence. In contrast, US troops on the ground are counter-productive as they increase the supply of terrorist attacks from the host countries, even though this effect has been significantly reduced by the Obama administration. Learn More

Over the past decades, economists have witnessed with growing uneasiness their failure to explain the ballooning of public debt in most countries. This book provides an alternative orientation that explains why concepts of public debt that are relevant for authoritarian regimes are not relevant for democratic regimes. Using methodological individualism and micro-economics, this book overcomes flaws inherent in the standard macro approach, according to which governments manipulate public debt to promote systemic stability. This unique analysis is grounded in the writings of Antonio de Viti de Marco, injecting current analytical contributions and formulations into the framework to offer a forthright insight into public debt and political economy. Learn More

How have the most influential political economists of the past three centuries theorized about sovereign borrowing and shaped its now widespread use? That important question receives a comprehensive answer in this original work, featuring careful textual analysis and illuminating exhibits of public debt empirics since 1700. Beyond its value as a definitive, authoritative history of thought on public debt, this book rehabilitates and reintroduces a realist perspective into a contemporary debate now heavily dominated by pessimists and optimists alike. Learn More

Using public choice economic methods, this Advanced Introduction presents a focused narrative about political decision-making based on the work that has defined the discipline. Each chapter ends with a Notes section to discuss the research on which the chapter is based, with an emphasis on the pioneering work that has shaped the development of public choice. Randall G. Holcombe emphasizes the theoretical foundations of public choice, with the idea that it offers a context within which empirical research can be understood. This book successfully explores the political decision-making process for readers and ensures that they understand how preferences of citizens are aggregated to produce public policies. Learn More

Denmark exemplifies the puzzle of socio-economic success in Scandinavia. Populations are thriving despite the world’s highest levels of tax and generous social benefits. Denmark would appear to be a land of paradise for free-riders and those who want ‘money for nothing’. However, the national personality is characterized both by cooperation in everyday life and the numerous ‘hard-riders’ who make extraordinary contributions. Applying Bourdieuconomics, the authors focus on contemporary case studies to explain how social capital and trust are used to counteract free-riding and enable the flight of the Scandinavian welfare state ‘bumblebee’. Learn More

Economists typically treat government as something outside the business realm, a sort of ‘Lord of the Manor’. Richard Wagner argues that this is the wrong approach and can ultimately be destructive to capitalism and to society. Learn More

The EU is at a crossroads. Should it choose the path towards protectionism or the path towards free trade? This book convincingly argues that lobbying regulation will be a decisive first step towards fulfilling the European dream of free trade, in accordance with the original purpose of the Treaty of Rome. Without the regulation of lobbyists to try and prevent undue political persuasion, there is a greater risk of abuse in the form of corruption, subsidies and trade barriers, which will come at the expense of consumers, tax payers and competitiveness. Learn More

This Handbook provides an overview of interdisciplinary research related to social choice and voting that is intended for a broad audience. Expert contributors from various fields present critical summaries of the existing literature, including intuitive explanations of technical terminology and well-known theorems, suggesting new directions for research. Learn More

Inspired by F.A. Hayek’s Individualism and Economic Order, this book also stands in contrast to the themes of that work, by emphasizing that collective action works differently from the way the market works. The chapters comprise papers written by James M.Buchanan, both with and without Yoon’s co-authorship, after the publication of his Collected Work volumes. These chapters reflect the authors' thoughts on politics, seen through the lens of fiscal policy and the tragedies of the commons and anti-commons in collective action. The pathologies of democratic politics rigorously analyzed in the book prove the relevance of Buchanan's constitutionalism Learn More

The quest for benefit from existing wealth or by seeking privileged benefit through influence over policy is known as rent seeking. Much rent seeking activity involves government and political decisions and is therefore in the domain of political economy, although it can also take place in personal relations and within firms and bureaucracies. Rent seeking, which involves the unproductive use of resources, is however primarily associated with policies that create rents as well as rent extraction or political benefit for the creators of rents. The contributions in this outstanding volume provide an accompaniment or “companion” to the literature on rent seeking and the related political economy of rent creation and extraction. The chapters, written by leading scholars in the field, demonstrate the centrality of rent-related incentives to the study of economics, politics, culture, public administration and history. Learn More

The Political Economy of Aerospace Industries will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students in industrial and defence economics, public choice and policy courses. It will also be of interest to researchers, policy-makers and those involved in the industry in various different capacities. Learn More

Beginning with a review of the extent of undeclared work, the author discusses the discrepancies between regions and the potential impacts of the economic crisis, comparing the nature of the potential solutions available with those actually adopted. The way forward, the book concludes, is to move away from increasing the costs of engaging in hidden work using repressive measures, and concentrate more on developing initiatives that enhance the benefits of engaging in declared work and increase the likelihood of compliance by engendering a commitment to tax morality. Learn More

The Elgar Companion to Hayekian Economics provides an in-depth treatment of Friedrich August von Hayek’s economic thought from his technical economics of the 1920s and 1930s to his broader views on the spontaneous order of a free society. Taken together, the chapters show evidence both of continuity of thought and of significant changes in focus. Learn More

Adam Smith is widely regarded as the ‘founder of modern economics’. The author shows, however, that Smith’s procedurally based, consequence-detached political economy, an approach shared by America’s Founders, finds no expression in the economist’s utilitarian, procedurally-detached theory of the state. This ‘wrong turn’ has meant that, if economists are ill-equipped to address an expanding federal enterprise in which utilitarian considerations trump the Smithian/Madisonian idea that means and ends must be morally and constitutionally constrained, they are also ineffectual bystanders as growing institutional skepticism, demands for ‘social justice’ and metastasizing rights claims threaten our self-governing republic. Learn More

This comprehensive and thought-provoking Handbook reviews public sector economics from pluralist perspectives that either complement or reach beyond mainstream views. The book takes a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach, drawing on economic elements in the fields of philosophy, sociology, psychology, history and law. Learn More

This highly unique book takes a fundamental look at when and how a government can fail at its core responsibility of formulating rules. Government, representing society, relates to the economy by formulating the rules within which (market) players should operate. Although market and business failure are much discussed in the economics literature, government failure is often overlooked. This book addresses this gap, exploring in detail what constitutes government failure. Learn More

This extensive book explores in detail a wide range of topics within the public choice and constitutional political economy tradition, providing a comprehensive overview of current work across the field. Learn More

The Companion lays out a comprehensive history of the field and, in five additional parts, it explores public choice contributions to the study of the origins of the state, the organization of political activity, the analysis of decision-making in non-market institutions, the examination of tribal governance and to modeling and predicting the behavior of international organizations and transnational terrorism. Learn More

Leading scholars examine recent evidence from theoretical and empirical research on tax compliance and tax evasion, and provide an in-depth analysis of underlying methods. Strategies to fight tax evasion are evaluated and the motivations behind it are explored, as are the impact and size of the shadow economy in Europe. As well as promoting a better understanding of the issues, this book intends to stimulate further debate and, in so doing, broaden the exchange of ideas and concepts. Learn More